How to play

You get one look at a color. Then it is gone, and you mix it again from memory.

A round, step by step

1. The screen goes neutral gray and says "Get ready" for a moment.
2. The target color fills the whole screen for your viewing time.
3. Neutral gray returns briefly, so the color does not linger next to anything else.
4. You rebuild the color with three sliders. A large preview updates as you move them. The sliders always start in the same place: hue 180, saturation 50, brightness 50.
5. Press Lock in color. You see the target and your color side by side, with their hex codes, the measured difference and your score.

Every game is five rounds. There is no time limit on the mixing step, so take as long as you like.

In the daily game and in challenges, each color shows once. If you reload or leave during a round, you come back to the mixing step for that same color. Endless practice gives you new colors every time.

Controls

• Hue (0 to 360 degrees) picks the color family. Red sits at 0 and again at 360, yellow at 60, green at 120, cyan at 180, blue at 240 and magenta at 300.
• Saturation (0 to 100) runs from gray to fully vivid.
• Brightness (0 to 100) runs from black to full strength.

Drag with a finger or mouse. On a keyboard, focus a slider and use the arrow keys to move one step at a time.

Viewing time

Choose this on the menu before you start. Relaxed shows each color for 5 seconds, Standard for 3 and Sharp for 1.5. Only the length of the look changes. The scoring is the same on all three.

Scoring

Each round is worth up to 100 points, so a full game is out of 500. The game measures the gap between your color and the target with CIEDE2000, a standard formula designed to track how different two colors look to people. A smaller difference means a higher score, and points fall away quickly once the miss is obvious.

Every target uses whole slider values, so a perfect 100 is always possible.

Today's game and practice

Today's game is one set of five colors per calendar date, using the date on your device. Your viewing time does not change which colors you get. You can finish it once a day, and each finished daily adds to your streak if you also finished one the day before. Miss a whole day and the streak goes back to zero.

Endless practice deals five fresh random colors each time, as often as you want. Practice never touches your streak, and it has its own best scores. Best scores are kept separately for each viewing time.

When a game ends you can copy a result to share. It lists your scores and viewing time but no color values, so it will not spoil the day's colors for anyone.

Tips

• Put it into words while you look. "Dusty teal, fairly dark" is easier to hold on to than the color itself.
• Set hue first, then saturation, then brightness, and go back for a small correction at the end.
• Remember what the targets avoid. Saturation is never under 30 and brightness is never under 35, so no target is a near-gray or a near-black.
• Learn the hue landmarks above. Knowing that orange is around 30 and violet is around 270 gets you close before you start fine tuning.
• Vivid colors punish hue errors most. On a muted color the same hue miss costs less, so spend your care accordingly.
• Use the comparison. Notice whether you tend to come back too pale or too dark. Your misses may have a pattern.

Questions

Can I replay today's game for a better score?

No. The first finished result for a date is the one that counts, and pressing Today's game afterward shows that result again. Use practice for more tries.

What happens if I leave partway through the daily?

Locked-in rounds are saved, and you pick up at the next one with the viewing time you started on. The color you had not locked in is shown to you again. Leaving a practice game discards it.

Do players in other time zones get different colors?

Each date has its own set, and the game goes by the date on your device, so someone already in tomorrow is playing tomorrow's colors.

Does my screen affect my score?

Your look and your mix happen on the same screen, so a dim display is fair to play on. Night-shift filters and big brightness changes between looking and mixing can throw you off, though.

Why is the rest of the site black and white?

Nothing around the sliders should tint your memory of the color. That is also why gray separates each look from the screens around it.

Will the color changes bother me if I am sensitive to motion or flashing?

The screen changes no more than twice a second. If your device is set to reduce motion, the fades become plain cuts and the countdown is hidden.

Is there a mode for color blindness?

No. The score compares the two colors using a model of typical color vision, so scores may not reflect how the colors look to you.